Month: September 2011

Drop Box is a cloud resource that you can access from any of your electronic devices, like your laptop, tablet, smart phone, and desktop computer. This cloud resource provides 2GB of free storage.

Now, 2GB doesn’t seem much, but it is sufficient enough to hold various documents, photos, images, or short videos. If you need more space, you can subscribe for more disk space. For most general applications, 2GB should suffice.

For example, as an online writer, I put various pictures or images on my drop box space. I also store my short writing thoughts on drop box. So no matter where I am, and regardless of which computing platform I’m carrying, I can access the files from my drop box.

Today is supposed to be my easy run or cross training day. Unfortunately, when my alarm went off, I still felt I needed more sleep.

When this happens, I go into multiple alarm snooze mode. I give my self 2 additional alarms—one that is 15 minutes later, and another that is 30 minutes later. The second is a back up alarm, just in case I enter REM level sleep that is way too deep for an alarm to get through.

Anyway, after getting through the two alarms, I decided to just totally skip the morning cross training. Instead, I will do my 30 minute to 1 hour cross training workout at my Taekwondo school. There our teen and adult class warm up lasts almost 30 minutes. That should suffice.

Regardless, the purpose of today is to still train, without stressing out the legs, thus giving it time to recover from yesterday’s track run.

This is it. The last post that will complete the 101 websites that may be worth seeing before you die. Here you go:

http://savethewords.org/ – Yes. An interesting site which looks like a massive board with thousands of words posted on it. The idea is to save words that no longer are used by adopting a word and spreading the word.

http://www.asdfjklsemicolon.com/ – No. This is a totally useless site. It is as good as the previous site–twocansandstring.com (also made by the same person. I’m not sure how it even made it to the Maximum PC article. Go figure.

http://kevan.org/proce55ing/zombies/ – Yes. You need to see this one so that you know that if we actually had a zombie infection, how fast that infection would spread. Fortunately there is no such thing as “zombies.”

http://www.dontevenreply.com/ – No. If you are like me, you have enough emails to read. This site has email thread archives of some communication exchange. I suppose it is supposed to be humorous and entertaining, but not in this format. It feels too much like reading email for work.

http://marriedtothesea.com/ – No. It is somewhat entertaining, but you could probably live not even visiting this site. They seem to be focusing in selling you their merchandise.

http://theoatmeal.com/ – Yes. Very entertaining. Some pages are explicit, so it may not be good for kids to see.

http://www.wordle.net/ – Yes. You need this site to get the gist of the underlying message of any written communication. This site will create a world cloud from an input of text. Try doing this on President Obama’s job plan speech (last 9/8/2011) and you’ll see that what stands out are the following words: right, now, tax, jobs, Americans.

http://htwins.net/scale/ – Yes. Absolutely yes. This site gives you a good perspective on how insignificant we are in the universe, and how massive it is. If this doesn’t prove there is a god, nothing will. This site has a slider that allows you to zoom in or out to see various objects with their relative size and scale.

http://www.sealandgov.org/ – No. This is just a web site for Sea Land. If you are into royalty, this may be the site for you, but definitely not me.

It seems that everyone is getting into the tablet market, and it also seems like there is always a new kid on the block being touted as the next iPad killer. I haven’t seen any news stating that Amazon is actually stating this, but the press seems to be doing it themselves.

Here’s the scoop on the new tablet that Amazon is going to announce this Wednesday, 28 Sep 2011:

7″ display

Android operating system

Color multi-touch screen

costs around $250

will also be called a Kindle

The press, in general, seems to indicate that this could impact the iPad’s market share because of Amazon’s market reach and cloud-based services. It think it is possible if this new Kindle will have a higher hardware specification than its competitor–the Barnes and Noble Nook Color. If it doesn’t, then it will simply be a Nook Color competitor, and thus will not upstage the iPad in any way.

Here’s my sore foot rolling a frozen bottle of water. It works great for treating plantar fas

[updated entry] Long runs for me are 10Ks or longer, but I start feeling sore once I do 10 miles or more. To treat my sore foot, I use ice in a water bottle which I’ve kept frozen in my fridge. To use it, I simply put the bottle on the floor and roll my sore foot on it for 15 minutes. It works very well.

I just finished running my long run for the week. The run spanned over 13.5 miles, and my legs and feet are tired—no, sore to be more exact. As I type this, I am rolling my feet over a narrow cylindrical bottle of frozen water to help reduce soreness under my feet; and it feels good.

Anyway, when doing long runs (anything in the 10 plus miles range) , you need to take into account the following:

Hydration: For my long runs, I use a hydration belt with two 8-10 oz. canisters. This seemed to be just enough for my 13.5 mile run.

Energy Gel: At my 12.5 mile mark, I started to get that weird feeling of weakness. Generally this can happen if your body’s glycogen (stored energy) is depleted. Most runners hit this at around the 18-20 mile mark. I probably hit it early because I haven’t eaten anything since last night. An alternative to using energy gel is just to use fluids that provide some calories for the run. I generally use Powerade for that. It has 80 calories per 12 fl. oz., and so every sip introduces some calories into the run.

Proper Socks: When you run long distance, it is best to make sure you have comfortable socks—the type that doesn’t cause pressure points between your feet and your shoes. When you run long distance, any minor irritant, can become an injury—blister to be more exact.

Audio: Long runs can last for as much as two and a half hours. I typically listen to the news, an eBook, or a podcast so that I can learn something at the same time. Some say you shouldn’t distract yourself with such things, and to just listen to your body; but everyone is different, so do what works for you. This definitely works for me.

That is it. Hopefully this is useful for anyone wishing to conquer a half-marathon or full marathon someday.

This is part 3 of a 4 part post regarding the February 2011 issue of Maximum PC which touts 101 websites you need to see before you die. In this article, I will continue to post my opinion regarding another 25 websites.

http://hatsproductions.com/organtrail.html – No. I would only recommend this site if you have time to kill, because this website page is basically a video game using graphics and technology based on 1970’s technology.

http://machinarium.net/demo – Yes. Even if you aren’t a computer game aficionado, you’ll at least appreciate the artwork and interesting puzzles here.

http://periodictable.com/ – Yes. I wish they had this when I was taking chemistry during college. It sure would have given me a better sense of what all these elements were.

http://firstpersontetris.com/ – No. This is just a tetris game where rotating the falling block isn’t what you do. Instead, you rotate everything else to make the block or shape land the way it needs to be. It makes you feel like you are in space doing tetris in zero gravity. This is very disorienting.

http://www.kongregate.com/games/icylime/multitask – No. This is a waste of time. If you like to torture yourself with useless multitasking activities, go for it. At the end of the day, it changes nothing, except maybe that you may think how uncoordinated you might be.

This is a continuation of a posting (101 Websites worth seeing before you die. Really? (part 1 of 4)) regarding an article I read on the February issue of Maximum PC. In the article, it listed 101 websites that they say you ought to see before you die. I beg to differ on some of the ones listed. What do you think?

http://demoscene.tv – No. For some reason the videos on this site would not play. I tried three different browsers. If it actually worked for me, I might have a different opinion.

http://www.pbfcomics.com – Yes. Good entertaining short comic strips. Look at a few and you’ll get a quick laugh. A little laugh here and there is always a good thing.

http://handdrawngames.com – Maybe. If you like tower-defense like video games, you’ll like this. WARNING! This game can get addicting; you can end up wasting precious time playing this game.

http://zombo.com – No, absolutely not. A waste of time. It seems just babble on and on about you being able to do anything at their site, when in fact, you can do nothing at their site.

http://lparchive.org – No. Seems to be an archive of old games, information about the, and some videos that show the look and feel of the game.

http://tvtropes.org – Maybe. If you are a fiction writer, this could be a good resource for you. This is a wiki site, and it definitely has tons of information to spark writing ideas.

http://autotopsy.ca – Yes. Gives one a very good idea of circumstances anyone of us can be in before an unexpected collision. The visuals and video are knit together to form a very cohesive presentation.

http://www.fasco-csc.com/works/crimson/crimson_e.php – Yes. If you aren’t from the generation that was fortunate enough to see the birth of the personal computer age, this site will give you an appreciation for how that generation of programmers created mysteries, puzzle, and adventure games.

http://www.tomscott.com/weather/starwars – Yes. If you are a Star Wars fan, this is definitely where you will want to tune in for weather. The site provides weather and temperature information that it tries to associate with the weather at a comparable location or planet.

http://maddox.xmission.com – Yes. This is an entertaining blog of someone who claims he’s got the best web page in the universe. If you are a sensitive or very politically correct, you can skip this site.

http://www.angelfire.com/trek/caver – Yes. This is an interesting blog by a caver. If you read the logs and look at the pictures and images, you will almost feel claustrophobic. If you don’t like tight places, I don’t recommend this. The bad this about this log was that it was never finished. Could it be that the caver perished?

http://www.ilovebees.com – NO. The site is supposedly about some person who loves bees. However, the site appears to be messed up. I hope it isn’t infected with some sort of mal-ware; and I hope my computer didn’t get infected.

http://www.photosynth.net/ – Yes. This is actually a Microsoft site. It allows you to get a 360 degree view of locations and objects. The content are actually a synthesis of multiple photos to give one a panoramic view of the subject matter. It is awesome, and it allows you the opportunity to contribute to the content.

http://recordtripping.com – No. This site is a game. I’m not quite sure what its objectives are, but the animation and audio sound pretty good. Nevertheless, it felt like a waste of time.

http://www.thewildernessdowntown.com – Yes. It is a good site to visit one time. After the novelty wears out, you’ll just get tired watching the firm it automatically generated for your using the address you provided.

http://balldroppings.com/js – Yes. This is an interesting play on physics and sound. Here you can control the rate at which the balls drop, the gravity, and the walls that the balls will encounter as they drop and bounce.

The February 2011 issue of Maximum PC has an article touting 101 websites you need to see before you die. In this article, I will post the 101 links along with my opinion about whether it is really worth seeing. This will be part 1 of 4 parts since there are 101 sites after all.

http://ww.wechoosethemoon.org – Yes. Make sure to see this site before you die. The Apollo 11 mission to the moon is probably one of “the” greatest human accomplishments of the 20th century. This site shows you the various stages Apollo 11 had to go through to land on the moon and return to earth. The combination of animation and real footage gives you a good feel for that event.

http://personas.media.mit.edu/ – Maybe. It scours the Internet for information about the name you enter at the site. When done it comes up with a graphical representation of your known persona. You might as well see what kind of legacy online you will leave behind when you die.

http://www.wefeelfine.org – No. It is a very visually luring site. I’m not sure how it figures out the various information it is showing, but I imagine it has done some web searches on the web and has consolidated that information for visual representation. Its content is definitely visually entertaining.

http://soytuaire.labuat.com – No. This site shows another way at listening to music…by doodling on the screen as various visual effects overlay on our doodle. Interesting but not enough to waste your time on.

http://www.shapethehive.com – No. It is one way to leave your mark on line; but I wouldn’t say it is really something to see before you die. It is one interesting asynchronous collaboration site with visual effects, but I don’t see the point.

http://us.akinator.com – Yes. This is an amazing site. I imagine it uses the power of the Internet to figure out who you are thinking of. When I started playing it, I thought it would not guess who I was thinking of. To my surprise, it guessed it and it even showed a picture of the character!

http://www.dionaea-house.com – No. This site is like reading other people’s email. As with anything, it is hard to get interested in the site since it doesn’t give you a clue about what it is about, nor does it try to tell you what story it is trying to convey. It’s like watching a movie from somewhere in the middle. You don’t have a point of reference and can’t really tell where the story may be going. So, I would skip this site, for sure.

http://www.linerider.com – Maybe…if you like drawing and animation. This site provides you with interesting drawing tools to create a path for the line rider. In some of the sample works, some users have gone through some length to create the most elaborate line path for the line rider. Interesting, but can be a time sink if you start tinkering with it.

http://prettyloaded.com – No, absolutely no–unless maybe you like watching grass grow. This site provides you a collection of “Loading” animations. “Loading” animations are typically shown to show that something is loading. This is typically what you watch, when you are waiting for something to load.

http://anasomnia.com – Maybe. Interesting animation of someone’s dream representation. Turn off the light and see what happens. It seems to just keep going on; but if you press the arrow on the top left, you’ll wake up the girl who is supposedly dreaming. The images are basically line drawn images of some very abstract shapes and figures.

http://www.stateoftheunion.onetwothree.net – Yes. This site gives you a different perspective of the various state of the union speeches given by all presidents. It can give insight into what the focus was of that time. It even rates the president’s grade level for the speech given.

http://hubblesite.org – Yes. This site shows you some of the most amazing pictures of heavenly bodies as seen through the eyes of the Hubble telescope. The pictures here will make you realize how seemingly insignificant we are in the big scheme of things.

http://www.eyezmaze.com – No. There are better things to do on the web than play games. These games are time sinks.

http://www.mcdlr.com/bsod – Yes. You need to use this site to at least play a joke on someone at work. If they are a techie and they happen to be running Windows 7, they’ll probably scratch their head. Windows 7 doesn’t do BSOD! If you play this trick on a non-techie, they won’t know any better regardless of which operating system they are using. They will know, however, that something might have gone wrong.

http://www.lmgtfy.com – No. This is just an extra shell that will record what you typed and then transfer it to google’s search.

http://blublu.org – Maybe. This is an interesting site. Viewing the site is like viewing someone’s scrap book. The presentation is pretty easy to follow.

http://www.mrwong.de/myhouse – Yes. It’s probably a good idea to check out the world’s tallest virtual building before you die. The author was pretty creative in creating such a site. The project has since been closed, but apparently the site is still getting lots of visits.

http://milliondollarhomepage.com – Yes, absolutely. This is an example of how anyone can make it big on the Internet. Just the right idea, and” BAM!!!” money rolls in. The originator of this site made a million dollars selling pixels from his pixelated homepage.

http://www.cleverbot.com – No. This is a site that looks like a search engine, but it is really an example of an online artificial intelligence (AI). This reminds me of an old AI-like program, the name which escapes me, that existed way back in the late 1970s. You can ask it questions, it responds. It asks you questions, and you respond. The program looks intelligent, but after a couple of exchanges, it isn’t.

As most people know, the human body is mostly made up of water. It just makes sense that we must keep it hydrated. As such, there is a known general rule that one must drink so many cups of water—depending on your size—every day. The average person loses up to 10 cups of water a day (up to 6 cups through urine and up to 4 through breathing, sweating, and bowel movement). So just to keep up with that, the average adult has to drink 8 cups of water a day. This is known as the 8×8 rule (8 ounces of water 8 times in a day).

When you run, your body needs more water primarily because it has to sweat and breath a lot of it out to keep the body temperature cool. When it doesn’t get enough, several things can happen. I’ll list some of the most common ones below, most of which I’ve peronally experienced:

There are different levels of dehydration. You might hit mild dehydration (2% fluid loss) once in a while, but hitting severe or extreme dehydration isn’t where you want to be, as you can put your life in danger.

Besides failure to hydrate can severely impact your running performance. So drinking is a must, unless you simply want to pass out or don’t care how you’ll perform.

The distances I run range anywhere from three or more miles. I use a hydration belt pack that can hold 2 bottles of water or Gatorade. Each bottle holds 8 to 10 ounces. One bottle suffices for runs below six miles. I use two bottles for anything beyond six miles.

Before running, I take several big gulps of gatorade or water. Then when I run, I take good sips of water at about the one to two mile intervals. This seems to work out for me (weight: 155 lbs., height: 5’7”).